


Kinslayer

by LadyLilac



Series: The Cracks in Her Armour [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Background fic, Gen, Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 14:01:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15973799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLilac/pseuds/LadyLilac
Summary: While the deeds of the much-lauded warrior of light will no doubt descend into legend as fuel for all manner of epic romance, the past of Eorzea’s most eminent hero remains shrouded to even the foremost historians of the realm.An origins fic for my WoL, L'liien Myka. Bad things happen to her. Good things too, but lots of bad.





	Kinslayer

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is the same WoL!L'liien from my fic Intrinsicism. I've written quite a few stories for her, and figured I might as well go ahead and share some after people took an interest in her. What better place to start from than the very beginning?

_While the deeds of the much-lauded warrior of light will no doubt descend into legend as fuel for all manner of epic romance, the past of Eorzea’s most eminent hero remains shrouded to even the foremost historians of the realm. To fill this utter dearth of history, even some of the most respected figures in the field have turned to that most egregious of academic pastimes - speculation. Many of these speculative theories paint the Warrior as an avatar of Hydelaen herself, born into the world through crystal magic fully grown and chomping at the bit to slay gods and liberate subjugated nations. Still wilder theories claim her to be a primal, or eikon entity, some going to far as to declare her Bahamut himself, resurrected, and repentant. Not one of these theories grounds itself in fact, and until verifiable information on the origins of the warrior of light is unearthed, I beseech each and everyone to not succumb to speculative temptation, lest fanciful imagination obscure history entirely._

_We can be certain the warrior has a past. It is this humble researcher’s opinion that she has simply chosen to hide it. Many of the most trusted accounts of the warrior’s deeds and accomplishments throughout her tenure as Eorzea’s champion depict her as flawed, and even at times broken, far from the deified and unflappable hero brought to life in the pageants and songs of troubadours and minstrels. She would not be the first hero forged by tragedy. I dare not digress further however, less I besmirch my own good name with further speculative hypocrisy. Simply put, the origins of the warrior of light are a historical mystery, and unless she herself choose to recount the days of her youth, a mystery, I suspect it shall stay.  
~ Excerpt from Chosen by the Light: A Biographical History of L’liien Myka, the Champion of Eorzea._

* * *

“Kinslayer!” L’liien clawed at him, her nails raking against the bare, unprotected skin of L’rikan’s arms.

His eyes scrunched up in pain. “Liien, please!” He cried out, pulling away from the younger miqo’te.

“Don’t call me that!” L’liien snarled. “You gave up that right when you killed our sister!”

L’rikan pushed her away, her smaller frame ultimately no match for her brother’s stronger one, even despite the burning, murderous anger empowering her. “Madine was my sister!” He shouted. “I cared about her just as much as I care about you!”

But that couldn’t be right though, could it? Because she knew what he did even if he wanted to pretend he didn’t, and if he cared about her at all then he wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have… L’liien broke down, violent shudders wracking her body as tears spilled down her cheeks. “Then why, Rikan? Why’d you kill our sister?” She grabbed weakly again for his arm.

L’rikan batted her hand away. “How can you keep accusing me of that?” He demanded. “These are the wilds – anything could have happened. Who knows, maybe she just left!”

_You know she’d never have._ L’liien felt the precise moment when she snapped, the despair, the confusion, the anger… all of it abandoning her, and all of it replaced by the pure, unrelenting bliss of hatred. She reached into her satchel and withdrew the knife she’d reclaimed from the wilds, its blade still stained with L’madine’s blood. “Coward,” she hissed through her teeth. “Spineless, backstabbing, oathbreaking coward!” She relished the way his eyes widened in shock and realization, and ignored the way his eyes seemed to cloud with pain and sorrow at the sight of the blood. “Did you think I wouldn’t look for her?” L’liien demanded. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice the reeking scent of blood, or find the knife – the knife pa gave you! – tossed aside in the bushes?” She growled at him, baring her teeth. “You must have wanted me to find her; you must have wanted what you knew I would do when I found out.” She could feel the voices – her voices – raging in her head. _Hurt him!_ They screamed. _The pain will hurt less if we share it! Carve her name into his kinslaying chest!_

L’liien shook her head. “Coward,” she whispered. “Too weak to kill yourself, so you took Madine to make me do it for you.”

“No!” L’rikan shouted, taking several uneasy steps back. “That’s not it! It wasn’t like that!”

And for the briefest moment, her hatred wavered, and she could feel the tears straining to spill from her eyes once more. “Then… Why?” She struggled to smother the despair, reaching again for the veil of blissful hate that she knew would let her do what had to be done. Tears could wait until the world made sense – until she had things sorted.

“I-” L’rikan buried his face in his hands. When he finally dared to look at her, his eyes were filled with sorrow. “The day before mother passed, she made Madine and I promise to keep you safe – to keep you happy. You were still so little and I think knowing she wouldn’t be there to keep you safe, to watch you grow into the woman she knew you’d become – I think knowing that was killing her as surely as the festering infection was. Madine and I… we kept that promise.” He smiled weakly. “You’re all grown up now, aren’t you? But… that kind of promise – you’re never, ever done with it, and Madine, she couldn’t – she wouldn’t! – get that. She wanted to stay out here forever, just because it was our homeland. She said it was only right.” He shook his head, grimaced, looked down at the floor. “There’s no future here except a slow, suffering death. I told her! I told her, and told her, and told her! We needed to leave, to go to the city-states, to find a better future – for you! But she just wouldn’t listen… she wanted me to take you while she stayed behind to watch over the graves of our kin.” When L’rikan looked back up at her, his eyes were wild. “I knew… I knew you would never leave without her. I knew! And I… If Madine wouldn’t do it, then I had to keep our promise – for both of us! It was… It was the only way. I know it was. Anything to keep our promise. Anything to protect our sister.”

L’liien looked upon the broken mess of a miqo’te in front of her, and she felt only loathing and hate. “You coward,” she breathed. “You never even asked me to leave.” She looked her brother over one more time, the way she would an animal exhausted from an endless hunt, then buried the blade of her brother’s knife, the last thing any of them had left of their father now ruined forever by the rosy stain of betrayal, deep into L’rikan’s wretched, kinslaying throat. She let go of the handle and left it there, stepping over him as he fell to the floor and drowned on his own blood, turning aside to reverently enter the room she’d until so very recently shared with her sister. She let her eyes drift shut. “If I close my eyes, I can believe you’re not even gone,” she said to her L’madine’s ghost.

The room answered with naught but the distant gurgling of a dying man, the fading lilac scent of her sister swiftly overpowered by the metallic reek of death and bleeding. She took her sister’s spear from where it still lay on her bed – leaving it there was a quirk Madine picked up to make sure she never forgot her maintenance before bed. She would do the same, L’liien resolved. A strange legacy to carry on, perhaps, but now, it was the only legacy she had left.

L’madine’s spear in hand, L’liien stepped over L’rikan’s corpse as she left their family home for the very last time in her life.

She traveled in silent solitude, surviving off the wilds, foraging and finding shelter with the skills L’rikan had once taught her, hunting and fighting the way L’madine had spent so many nights drilling, remembering the way her brother and sister would look to each other and smile when she took their varying lessons to heart.

“It felt good, didn’t it?” a part of her asked her.

“It did,” she agreed, her eyes fixated on the dirt road she now followed – the first sign of civilization she’d encountered since she left her freshly shattered home behind.

“Should we do it more?” the same part asked.

She pictured L’madine splayed out beneath her, feeble hands grasping helplessly at the spear driven through her heart. “Only the monsters,” L’liien said. “Only the monsters.”

The part of her was quiet for a while. Its silence didn’t bother her. It spoke so very rarely.

“Then we will find more monsters?” it finally asked. “And kill them and feel good?” L’liien almost missed the question, busy as she was trying to wave down a passing carriage, kicking up dust as it rumbled down the road.

“Perhaps,” L’liien promised. “Perhaps.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oops she might be a bit psycho. Ah well what true hero isn't?
> 
> You can follow me on my tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/orderlyanarchist) if you want. I post previews and stuff there sometimes. 
> 
> Comments make me a happy girl, be they praise or the harshest criticism you can muster. I cherish all feedback.


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